Shafts have been used for transferring torque from a driving element to a driven element for many years. One example of this type of shaft is a driveshaft of an automotive vehicle that transfers driving force from a motor to wheels for driving the automobile.
These shafts have been formed from tubes and have a yoke or universal joint welded onto a distal ends of the shaft to pivotally engage a drive train or driving element on one end and a differential or a driven element on an opposing end. These yokes are formed from a casting that require a machine or grinding operation to form required apertures for receiving a cruciform or pin to engage the driving element and driven element as explained above.
Once the casting has been machined to its desired configuration, it is welded onto the tube to form the driveshaft. Due to the inherent design and manufacturing flaws associated with a cast yoke, the drive shaft must be balanced to reduce the vibration by affixing weights to various locations of the driveshaft. This process of balancing and welding has proven to be cost prohibitive and inefficient while reducing performance due to the increase in weight resulting from the attempt to balance the shaft.
Therefore, it would be desirable to reduce the necessary operations of affixing a cast yoke to a tube to form a driveshaft, which would improve vehicle performance while reducing manufacturing cost.